Fear the Walking Dead star Frank Dillane talks Mexico, tea and 007

Frank Dillane talks season 3 of Fear the Walking Dead

Photo Credit: Richard Foreman, Jr/AMC

I’ve been busy at work the last few weeks preparing for the season 3 premiere of Fear the Walking Dead. Last night the long awaited return aired in the UK on AMC on BT TV, 24 hours after the US premiere. Although some diehard fans were up at 2am to watch the simulcast.

The cast are still in Mexico busy filming the rest of the season, I was lucky enough to catch up with Frank Dillane in-between takes. Frank Dillane is incredibly funny, shy, and very modest about his work.

Photo Credit: Michael Desmond/AMC

Gotta love tea

I met Frank Dillane last year in LA at the season 2 press junket. I thought he might be home sick (I myself know the tea in the US just isn’t the same), so brought him a bag of treats from home. The tea bags, Quality Street and Marmite went down a treat. I asked Frank if he had managed to make the tea bags last. “I don’t have those particular tea bags anymore, but I did manage to find a new pack of PG Tips!”.

A foggy day in a Mexican valley

But the show has long moved on from LA and the boat of the first half of season 2 and continues in Mexico, on the US boarder. I asked Frank if he has got used to the heat over there, now that he is a season and a half in on the Baja set. “It’s not that hot, it’s quite foggy here. We’re in a valley so it is often quite misty and foggy. In Tijuana they have some sort of saying about people that live in Rosarito they are all sort of moody or something, you know, a bit funny because they don’t see the sun. It actually sounds funny in Spanish, it’s not that sunny here, it’s quite misty and white.”

Photo Credit: Michael Desmond/AMC

What we can expect in season 3

At the end of season 2 Nick became the leader of him group and convinced everyone to follow him and venture forward to the border, with disastrous effects. He is no longer feeling immortal. But Frank doesn’t think that particular moment has changed Nick anymore than the subject matter of the show. “We don’t carry on in linear fashion from emotional moment. The concept of what happened we need to forget in order to carry on. So this new season is a bit of a clean slate.”

Season 3 kicked off with a bang last night, and is certainly far more fast paced than we are used to of Fear the Walking Dead. But Frank doesn’t find it harder than the previous seasons. “The running around is usually quite straight forward. The choreography in the action sequences takes more time, but the difficult work is the more slow-paced stuff. It is far more mentally taxing.”

The next James Bond

Before I let Frank get back to filming, I couldn’t help but remind him about our James Bond chat. When we met last year, practically every British actor’s name was being thrown into the hat as a suggestion to replace Daniel Craig. Frank joked that I was offering him the part.

After laughing hysterically at me asking Frank if he wanted us to start a campaign as his name still hasn’t been thrown into the mix, he offered his opinion on the next contender.”Ha ha. Nah, I’m alright, let’s leave that campaign where it is. I’ll tell you who I think should play James Bond though, I think it is going to be Taron Egerton.

“He is a friend of mine, he is the guy from the Kingsman. He is landing all these big parts at the moment, and he is going to be our next big celebrity actor. I think he would be a great Bond.”

Taron Egerton for James Bond? Image source: Evening Standard

So there you have it, Taron Egerton for Bond! Frank, we hope you enjoy the rest of filming for season 3.

Fear the Walking Dead airs Mondays at 9pm on AMC, exclusive to BT. It airs Sunday nights in the US and is simulcast at 2am in the UK for die hard fans.

Meeting Frank at the LA press junket for Fear the Walking Dead season 2 in March 2016

Disclosure: In my day job I work on the PR activity for BT and AMC. I was not asked to write this post, these are all my own views.